God
Provides Ord 17B July 2012
One
of the early church heresies was led by a man named Marcion. Marcion could not
see the value of the Old Testament in our Scriptures, and thought it should be
discarded. Rightfully, Marcion was excommunicated from the church. But after
thinking about today’s Old Testament reading, and its connection to the gospel,
I’m convinced that if I could sit with Marcion for a few hours, I could
convince him that the Hebrew Scriptures are an integral, valued part of our canon.
The
connection of first reading today with the gospel is instantly apparent. When
the prophet Elisha ensures there is enough food for the crowd, he fulfills not
only the role of prophet, but also that of King of Israel, whose first
responsibility it was to attend to the welfare of his people; especially to the
widow, the stranger and the poor. Elisha’s deeds parallel that of Jesus in
today’s gospel… the people ate and were more than satisfied with the simple
bread from heaven.
I
think it is quite interesting that in both these miracle stories about Elisha
and Jesus, the miraculous provisions of food for the multitudes did not come
from the wealthy folks, or even from the prophet, but rather it came from God’s
work through the poor. It came from a farmer who could offer only 20 loaves of
bread, and a child who only had 5 barley loaves and some fish. It was through
the poor that God provided for the people.
The
story of the loaves and the fishes is one of the most well-known gospel
stories. Today’s passage presents us with a sign that is misunderstood by both
the disciples and the crowds who witness it. This is the first of 5 consecutive
weeks where we hear from John’s Bread of Life discourse. 5 weeks of Eucharistic
theology.
Today
we are immersed in a scene where people are following Jesus because they have
seen the signs and healings he has performed, even though there is little
indication that they understood them. In fact, at the end of this discourse,
some disciples will find Jesus’ mission so hard to bear that they will leave
him.
Jesus’
first concern for the crowd gathered that day had to do with their
nourishment—both physical and spiritual. He asks Phillip where they could find
food for the crowd. We can almost picture Phillip’s exasperated state of mind
when he says that it would take a year’s wages to provide enough food for all
these folks. Then Andrew comes up with an absurd solution to use a child’s 5
barley loaves and some fish.
Then
Jesus simply gives thanks and distributes food to everyone, and the disciples
gather up the leftovers. The crowd was fed, and they saw what Jesus was doing,
but they did not understand the importance of the event. They saw it as another
remarkable event. They didn’t see it as a sign of God revealing himself to his
people. They might have judged it a miracle of sorts... a suspension of
nature’s laws, or some sort of magic. But to John, a sign is something
different. Rather than providing proof of something, a sign demands our
judgment and our understanding. It belongs to the realm of revelation and
faith, rather than science. A sign is a truth that does not deny the reality of
the event. But, more importantly, it recognizes it as a gift of God rather than
a violation of any physical law of nature.
The
people did understand something in Jesus’ action that day. They recognized him
as a prophet. They began to see that the real miracle that day was not the one
that changed loaves and fishes, but the one that began to change the hearts of
men and women and children.
But
their response to this was to try to carry him off as their king, their
political leader and provider—a prospect Jesus would flee by withdrawing alone
up in the mountains. In the gospels over the next 5 weeks, Jesus will attempt
to teach the people the significance of their experience: that he himself is
the bread that has come from heaven; that he is not the magic provider of
everything they want, but rather the genuine source of all that they need.
Part of the lesson that we can take
from these stories of signs in today’s readings becomes a commentary on the
Paschal Mystery—the mystery of who Jesus is. When we give all that we have, as
the people on the hillside did that day, God can provide all that is needed for
everyone. The other teaching we take away from these miraculous events is that
they are signs of God’s love working through simple human beings, not
suspensions of nature or a manifestation of the power of a chosen prophet.
If we go away today thinking that this
is another cool thing that Jesus did, we miss the point. We miss the purpose of
the story. The similarity of Jesus giving Thanks, and the words he used became
the words of the consecration. Jesus doesn’t just hand us bread, he is the bread of life for us. He is nourishment. We miss all that if we
receive communion like a mechanical robot, with our minds on something else.
What will happen on this altar this evening is just as miraculous as the
multiplication of the loaves.
My
friends, as we prepare to receive the Eucharist today, let’s remember to pray
for ourselves and our loved ones, with open minds, and open hearts. Let us pray
that, we, despite our fears and failures, we will grow ever so gradually into
what the Word of God promises we already are: The Body of Christ in the World.
